Slow Boat to Highward
Primary Characters *Kyson *Tethys *Kyrean *Talik Secondary Characters *Captain Amos *Maeryth of Thornhaven , Nan to Kyrean *No-No , Green Whelpling Familiar of Kyson Locations *Blackthorn River *The Grey Goose Plot Points *Kyrean Alba , a noble of the House of Alba , does not believe that Kyson , a commoner, should be allowed to take the Apprentice test . Magic is for nobles. *Towers , as a game, is introduced. *Kyrean is also to stay in the city of Highward after the Conclave for the wedding of a cousin. Plot Summary With the annual conclave of the Azure Council only a few days away, Master Tethys has set out with a number of apprentices to attend. Kyson and Kyrean are intended to take their Apprentice Test to continue with their study of arcane magic. Talik is going as Tethys' porter to help him move his belongings back and forth. Narrative The Blackthorn river had more twists and turns in it than a briar bush but the water was moving quickly and the ship was making good time. The Grey Goose was a forty-foot river cog that made the journey from the lake-town of Blackport along the blackthorn river to the city of Highward. The river-ways are the trade arteries of the North Marches bringing much needed supplies to all of the small river towns that had sprung up along their lengths since the region had become colonized by humans. Since the blackthorn river traveled in the direction of Highward, it was very common for ships to sell passage to traders, travelers and the like as it was an easy way to make money if they had the room. The Goose, as the ship was known to almost every river-town and village along the length of the Blackthorn, had picked up a few passengers when they went through the town of Thornhaven a few days ago. A small party of Masters and students from the Priory of the town were heading down the river to the city of Highward and had booked passage for themselves with Captain Amos. In addition to the masters was the daughter of the Lord of Thornhaven, the Lady Kyeran of the House of Alba. Kyeran, a young woman of seventeen winters, was being sent with her Nan and some guards to attend the wedding of a cousin in the city of Highward. As a nobleman’s daughter, she attended the Priory to earn a basic education in reading, writing, history and the like. Although she was a good student she didn’t care for the riggors of an academic life. She dreamed of living in a big city, married to an important and powerful family so she could have servants do as she pleases. The House of Alba was fairly influential in the North Marches as her father was Baron of the Barony of the Briarwood, one of the seven baronies of the North. Their family had only recently come into power - since her great-grandfather’s time and they had tended to stick to their own lands and to their own affairs and so weren’t too terribly embroiled in the region’s politics. This left life, according to Kyeran, rather dull. There was no excitement, nothing more interesting than sheep shearing, lunar festivals and the occasional traveling merchant that came to the lake-side town of Thornhaven. ''Wedding However, the wedding of a close cousin demanded that the House send a representative to give its blessings and convey its best wishes to the new couple. Kyeran took two days to convince her father that she could make the journey on her own but he insisted in sending a few guards and her Nan - the woman that practically raised her since she was born. The guards were her own, assigned to her for several years now, so she knew them quite well and was appreciative of their strong backs when it came to hauling the chests of her belongings and the wedding gifts aboard the ship. Second Day'' After the second day on the ship she gave the guards permission to remove their cloaks, helmets and much of their armor so that they would not grow too hot in the sun while she was out on deck. It was early in the month of Marn, two months past the last of the snows of winter but it could still get quite warm in the afternoon. She enjoyed spending her days sitting up at the forecastle aboard the Goose under a shade awning the ship’s men had created for her. There she could read or just watch the shores of the river float by on their way to the city; anything but be cooped up in her quarters below deck. Her Nan, a woman named Maeryth , was always close by, usually keeping herself busy embroidering a kerchief or the cuff of a glove or something to that effect. The older woman had been closer to her than her own mother in most respects. As a Baroness, her mother’s time was not her own and so she was given to her Nan to raise with only the occasional visits with her mother in the evenings. While on the trip she allowed the Masters and their students to join her under the shade so that she would have someone to talk to or even play games with. She and Master Tethys had played several games of Towers and she enjoyed beating him at least half of the time although she wasn’t sure if he was letting her win or not. She learned very quickly to protect her Mage piece - especially when playing against a magus like Master Tethys. Tethys was an intelligent sort of man in his mid-thirties who had worked for her household for as long as she could remember. When she was much younger, around the age of six, she remembers there being a huge fuss about how he had passed some kind of test and was sent to the kingdom of the gnomes off of the shores of the city of Kel Arn. She couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why anyone would want to go live with the gnomes - and to live in an entire kingdom of them was just beyond her imagination. Kyeran didn’t like gnomes - though she had only seen one once. She thought that they were always judging people - like they were somehow better than people; human people. Fiction Tethys moved an archer on the board and smiled as he glanced up to the young lady and offered a polite word of warning, “I have your tower surrounded m’lady.” Kyeran was suddenly snapped back into her personal world of private thoughts at Tethys’ warning. She studied the board for a moment and then moved one of her knights to take the archer with a polite, if breathy smile. She was getting so bored of him letting her win. A sudden splash was heard behind her and she turned to see the end of a sinuous green tail disappear under the surface of the water. She watched for a moment and the long, reptilian head of a faux dragon emerged with a large fish in its mouth. The creature was about the size of a small dog but its wings and long tail made it look much larger as it swam back to the side of the boat. With its two front legs it clawed its way back on deck with a soppy-wet slush of wet leathery skin. Immediately the faux turned and started to walk towards where the Lady and her guests were sequestered under the canopy and she started to worry that it was coming for her. “Boy...control your pet,” she scolded the young apprentice sitting at the edge of her canopy. Kyson glanced up from his book and turned from Kyeran to the faux dragon that was stalking towards him with the fish still flapping wildly in its mouth. He shook his head a bit at the young woman’s tone and held his hand out towards the green-scaled fisherman to stop it. “No-no...she doesn’t want the fish,” he began to say in a tone that was balanced on the edge of sarcasm and scolding. The faux’s wings drooped and a low, muttered cry escaped around the fish dangling in his mouth. He dropped the still-flapping food on the deck and squawked out, “Eat!” Tethys turned back to watch the faux demonstrate their one, possibly annoying and amusing quality, mimicry. The faux looked past Kyson and Tethys to Kyeran and thumped the end of its tail on the deck excitedly. The magus could tell that the faux was playing with her and was momentarily grateful that he was facing away from the young lady as a smile crawled over his face. The thought of the dragon bounding past all of them to drop the meal at her feet would not leave his mind - even though he would probably have to punish Kyson for ‘letting’ it happen. “No-no...she doesn’t want it.” Kyson’s tone intensified to curb his pet’s natural playful side. Standing from the bench he continued to hold his hand out before him to the faux, fingers splayed wide to show the star-shaped patch of bone-white skin in his palm; the dragon star. No-No, the green faux dragon, took the fish once again into his mouth and tipped his muzzle straight up into the air to let it slip down his throat. Within a few gulps he had the fish wholly consumed and looked around for a place to perch. Once Kyeran saw that the pet had left she relaxed her shoulders a bit and reclined back into her chair while the others slowly retook their seats. “I don’t see why you let him keep that thing,” she said with enough volume in her voice so that Kyson could easily overhear. Tethys reached for the strap of his satchel and stood to leave - knowing that when she got in one of these moods it was best to leave her alone to stew in her own juices. “There’s no predicting with whom a faux dragon will Bond, m’lady. You know full well that Kyson had no idea that No-No, er..the pet was actually the same one your father bought for you.” Tethys responded with equal volume since he also wanted Kyson to hear. The apprentice tried his best to perk his ears up to hear what the two of them were saying and it wasn’t that hard considering how far he was from them - but he had to at least try and look as though he were too far away to hear. He never knew that the faux dragon that he now cared for was originally a pet of Kyeran’s. It did explain her general hostility towards him - at least in part. She had been short with him ever since they set foot on the boat and he couldn’t figure out why. Now it all made sense; he had taken her toy - or at least that’s how he saw it. Noting Tethy’s standing to leave he too reached for his satchel and would leave with his master. “Well I don’t like those...things around me. They’re a menace and a pest and should be wiped out from our lands,” Kyeran retorted bitterly. “One creature did not share its Bond with you and you wish every one of its kind killed within your lands?” Tethys asked to clarify - a sarcastic and condescending tone to his voice. “Pitty - I thought that I was escorting a young lady to a royal wedding where she would take her first steps into adult life as a representative of the House of Alba.” He shouldered his satchel and paused before adding, “...perhaps I was mistaken.” “You may leave!” Kyeran fumed and crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. Her blood began to boil and her face flushed with anger at the impotent tone of the house magus; house’s magus. He was a servant of her house, technically, and should afford her all of the respect that she was entitled due to her position within society as a noble. Maybe if she threatened some of his books he’d learn his place around her. Tethys and Kyson turned to face her and bowed in unison before leaving the shading canopy and stepped down to the main deck of the Goose. Category:Fiction/Kyson Category:Fiction/Wizard Category:Fiction/880 KR